Near
by Alex Foster
Summary: Aloneness as seen through three people in season six


Title: Near

Author: Alex Foster

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Category: General

Setting: Midway through season six

Rating: PG

Summary: Aloneness as seen through three people in season six.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon. No money is being made and no infringement is intended.

Author's Notes: This is my entry in the Taming the Muse writing challenge. The prompt was In Absentia. Probably not what the mods had in mind, but I hope it stands the acid test.

* * *

Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for

-Tennessee (Thomas Lanier) Williams, Camino Real

* * *

It was in the morning when Willow felt the absence most keenly. On her own again she struggled not to slip, to do her best at night, but lately she woke in the morning to failure. There were just so many things she had to control herself not to do these days and she wasn't sure how to practice restraint while asleep.

Although, Willow knew, it was better she slip here in a non-injuring-Dawn kind of way. Plus the pain of it when she woke up was nothing short of what she deserved. The old karma clock must be quarter to Willow by now.

Every night when she went to sleep, Willow made sure to take the center of the bed. It was a small thing, a stupid thing, but it just wasn't right to be single and have a side of the bed. There were probably some psychological reasons for that, but Professor Walsh went all evil before getting to that lesson plan.

Still, Willow knew that waking up with an empty space next to her was bad on many levels. It made her dependent on a ghost no longer there, and would never return again.

It reminded her of loneliness.

After Oz left, she hadn't thought there was anything worse than trying to remember how to sleep alone. Little did she know how it would feel after Tara packed up. Having to do it again was like scarred flesh being burned anew.

The best way, she knew, was to avoid the pain by waking up in the middle of the bed where she belonged.

Maybe one day, if she kept trying, she'd find herself there come morning.

* * *

The sensation of a cool body next to Buffy was oddly familiar. She slowly drifted back into consciousness, trying to figure out where she was and how she got there. The usual questions. Years spent being knocked unconscious had given her an understanding of the drill, but this time the warm stickiness of blood and the sharp sting of stones in her back was absent.

In fact, she felt comfy.

Pushing herself up onto her elbows, Buffy blinked the sleep from her eyes and saw...Spike.

_Oh God_

Memories came flooding back of patrolling the graveyard hoping she wouldn't run into Spike all the while working her way closer to his crypt. Of telling him she would never sleep with him again as she stripped his clothes off and held him down.

After their...activities...she must have fallen asleep. She wondered how exactly she had ended up next to him in his bed. That wasn't where they started, or, finished. Spike must have carried her here. She sighed. A vampire that wanted to cuddle.

Buffy wondered how long ago that happened. Lack of clocks and windows in his place made it hard to guess the time. Certainly didn't feel like time to get up. Putting her head back down, she thought of slipping away and returning home. If it already morning, she'd get home just in time to hear the alarm buzz. Maybe she should just stay here. Willow wasn't straying far from home these days and she would make sure Dawn got off to school okay.

Buffy studied Spike's profile in the dim light. A vampire's lack of radiant body heat was something she had forgotten from her time with Angel. They were room temperature. Not counting when they fed, the warmest time with them was right after sex. That heat, Angel had explained, was from her. They absorbed the body heat she gave off. With Angel that knowledge used to arouse her. It made her think the only way he could feel warm was to be with her.

But Angelus had shown her there were other ways for a vampire to feel warm.

Maybe that was why sex felt different with Spike. He invoked the most basic instincts inside her—he needed her warmth since those other ways were off limits now. Or maybe it was due to the guilt she felt because this affair was wrong. Even for a creature like Spike it was wrong. She didn't love him, could barely stand the sight of him, and yet she didn't want to leave him.

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to feel the cooling body next to her.

* * *

Solitude, Tara had learned, was a great thing. It was when she was alone, away from judging eyes and harsh comments, she could work free and accomplish the most. She did not have to worry about pacing her words to control stuttering if there was no one to speak to.

Moving into her new apartment, small as it was, almost entirely by herself had been a touch daunting, but box by box she had done it. The absence of company did not have to mean the loss of the homely feeling she had with Willow. Tara knew how to make a space for herself without others. Her upbringing by people that didn't want her assured that.

Checking one task off her list after another, Tara had signed up for two new classes, stocked her tiny kitchen with a fine selection of boxed dinners for one, and found some great books at the library to pass time until she could afford a TV. Being on her own again was liberating. She could go back to silently moving through life without worry of doing or saying the wrong thing.

And it wasn't like she'd never see the old gang—she would still see Dawn and, occasionally, Buffy. It was better this way—she was better. Loneliness and aloneness were not the same thing; she had learned that early on. Loneliness would swallow a person whole, but aloneness allowed a person to grow and become better.

Her mother had taught her that important lesson.

Tara told herself that Willow would one day understand that difference, too. Only that thought made waking up on her side of the bed each morning bearable.

**End**


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